John Soroka reading to St Bernadette’s Catholic Primary School students.

AROUND 30 dads took part in the Dads’ Reading Challenge at St Bernadette’s Catholic Primary School as part of the school’s Book Week celebrations.

The dads volunteered in response to calls from the school to bring more male role models into the junior school, especially in the area of literacy.

They spent the morning reading to groups of children, allowing the students to see someone different to their mainly female teachers reading to them.

Principal Steve Gibbs said fathers’ involvement in reading to their children had been shown to have a huge impact on children’s abilities and their development.

“Research has shown that children whose dads read to them behave and concentrate better, are more interested in books later on, have wider vocabularies, better problem-solving skills and are better at maths,” he said.